


Nos Amours

by Idday



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Baseball, M/M, Team North America
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 15:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13238748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idday/pseuds/Idday
Summary: Jack manages his pitchers, and Auston manages Jack. That’s just how it is.Connor McDavid is beginning to make that very difficult.





	Nos Amours

**Author's Note:**

> You know the drill, kiddos. None of us want you to read this if you are or know these people irl, because the fiction is strong with this one.

Jack rolls into spring training with something that looks not unlike a dead animal growing on his face.

When Auston asks him about it, he shrugs and says, “The Bs are on a win streak,” as if that explains everything. Which, considering that it’s Jack, it actually sort of does.

Auston laughs and rolls his eyes and opens his arms, and Jack drops his massive gear bag and walks straight into them. “How was your offseason?” he asks, voice muffled in Auston’s neck and probably by his godawful beard.

Auston shrugs when Jack steps back, same old same old. “Let me guess,” Jack says, “Fucked more hot girls than the rest of us know what to do with, and didn’t call them back.”

“Well,” Auston says, and grins a little sheepishly. It’s more or less true, after he took a few weeks to lick his wounds after another disappointing post-season. “I called some of them back. How was yours?”

“Good, fine,” Jack says. They have this conversation every year, and so Auston only half tunes in, lacing his cleats up. “Slept, saw my parents, squatted more weight than you.” Auston turns his head at that, but it’s probably true, so he just grins and shrugs it off. “Went to a bunch of Bruins games with Noah.”

That, Auston does not grin at, and Jack can probably see whatever it is that Auston does with his face, because he finishes a little stiffly, “so pretty much like always.”

“How’s Noah doing?” Auston asks finally, because they’re friends too, in their way. In the college teammates who haven’t spoken in a while way, sure, but friends. He’s not as close with Noah as he is with Jack, or as close as Jack is with Noah, but he’s also not really allowed to have an opinion on their relationship. He knows this.

“Yeah, good,” Jack says vaguely, which answers zero of Auston’s unanswered questions, and that was probably intentional, so.

They wander out to the field together to warm up, and Auston asks lowly, “heard anything more about McDavid?”

Jack cuts his eyes over, sharply. “Not any more than before,” he says. When the trade was finalized last month, Jack had been the first person Auston had texted about it, and even though they generally don’t speak too much in the offseason, Jack had answered right away. Auston’s still feeling a little off-balance about the whole thing, to be honest. Not that he thinks it’s about him, and not that having a deeper bullpen is a bad idea, obviously, and he knows that their playoff run was a disappointment to more than just the team last season, but. He hadn’t foreseen the Expos picking up a pitcher of McDavid’s caliber in the offseason.

At the time, he’d been stunned, just texted Jack, _heard he’s hard to catch._

And Jack had sent back, predictably, _not 4 me._

“He’ll be here today, anyway,” Jack says, which is true, but if Auston was coming onto a new team, he may have texted his probable catcher first, is all he was thinking.

Jack breaks away when they hit grass, bounds over to Aaron with too much energy for someone who was resting every other game this time last season, when he was coming back from his injury. He’ll be back over soon to bother the pitchers, anyway, when he’s finished bugging his protege. He’s reliable like that.

Auston nods to the guys and starts his stretching. MacKinnon and Drouin have their heads together like always, Colton and Seth and Shane are chatting away. Matt’s on his back in the grass, doing something that looks like nothing to Auston but would probably get him snapped at if he tried to say hello, because Matt’s a damn good relief pitcher but he’s also a headcase and he doesn’t try too hard to hide it. There’s a few other unfamiliar faces—minor leaguers, probably—but McDavid is notably absent.

Jack does meander back over then, beaming, arm around Aaron’s neck. Most catchers that Auston’s played with before aren’t close with their backups, maybe because they’re always breathing down each other’s necks, hoping for a start. Jack’s not like that, though, manages Aaron with the same cheerful bullying that he uses on his pitching staff, and Aaron is thankfully placid enough that he hangs on for the ride, mostly.

“This weather is fucking ridiculous,” Jack says happily, when he’s finished clapping everyone on the back. He even gets Matt to open one eye when Jack nudges his leg with a cleat, which is better than Auston would have hoped for. “There were two feet of snow on the ground when I left Boston. This is unnatural, I swear to God. Fucking Florida man, I’ll tell you, you couldn’t pay me enough to live somewhere without winter. I gotta have my seasons, or it just doesn’t feel right.”

“And the gators,” Seth says, semi-seriously, because they’ve had this conversation every year they’ve started spring training together, and they all know the script.

“The gators,” Jack repeats, and shivers, “don’t mention the fucking gators. The gators and the snakes, you know? Swear to god I saw one outside my hotel this morning. Almost didn’t come in, it shook me up so badly.”

“Aww, Eichs, but what would we do without you?” MacKinnon says, just like he’s supposed to.

“You’re lucky I’m here, Nate,” Jack says gravely.

Aaron claps his hand over Jack’s ballcap, says, “better than February up in Montreal, though,” which makes Jo Drouin swear lowly in French and spit in the grass.

“Jack’s ready for it,” Auston says. “Look at that thing growing on his face, that’ll keep him warm.”

Jack doesn’t even protest, just throws his head back to laugh, and that’s when McDavid finally arrives, wearing an Expos hat that’s painfully white and with the majority of the coaching staff hot on his heels.

Jack puts on his game face so suddenly that it makes Auston’s head spin, a smile dying on his own lips. Jack only ever gets this serious when he’s in his gear, eyes narrowed and watching every millisecond of a game with a focus that most people who know him casually assume he doesn’t have. It’s not that Auston doesn’t know that he takes the game seriously. It’s more that—when Shane came on, mid-season, Auston was there for that meet-and-greet, too. Jack had made a joke at the Astros expense, made Shane smile, had felt him out like he does with all his new guys. It hadn’t been like this.

“McDavid,” Jack says, before anyone else can speak, and sticks his hand out to shake. “Glad to have you on.”

McDavid takes his hand for a long, still moment. “Happy to be here,” he says finally, “looking forward to playing with you.”

Jack nods, drops his hand. “Gonna warm up,” he says, and jogs away. Seth is throwing Auston confused faces over the top of McDavid’s blindingly new cap, and Auston has no idea, so he mans up, introduces himself, and then takes off after Jack.

They pass each other in the outfield, Jack already on his way back in, jogging backwards now. It makes it easy to pretend that Auston colliding with him is an accident.

“You good?” He asks, hands on Jack’s waist.

Jack makes a face that Auston can’t interpret, says, “I’ve broken in new pitchers before.”

He’s not new, though, not really—new to the team, but not to the majors. “Okay,” Auston says, because there’s nothing else left, really. “Wanna get dinner, later on?”

…

Practice is fine, everything is fine. Auston’s batting fine, he’s pitching fine, warming back up after a few months off, and everything is… it’s fine.

Jack is very much not fine, except Auston thinks that he may be the only one who’s noticed, because he jokes with the guys and runs his clubhouse like he always has and mournfully—a few days into spring training and with much fake commiserating from the bullpen—shaves off his atrocious facial hair after his Bruins drop a game to the Caps. He’s normal Jack, except when he’s not.

Except when Auston looks too close, except when McDavid’s in the room.

It’s an adjustment, to be sure. A guy like that, he’s bumped more than one starting pitcher down the list, Auston included. He’s as good as advertised, burning bullpen catchers like nobody’s business. He’s pretty unobtrusive, too, so quiet in the room that Auston can’t tell if he’s still adjusting or if he just doesn’t speak to anyone but his pitching coach and—under great duress—whoever’s catching him.

The media’s all spun up, of course. It’s February, and there’s no better baseball story than the biggest trade of the offseason, the rare Canadian going home.

“That’s bullshit,” Jack says, when Auston points it out. “He’s from Toronto.”

“That’s in Canada.”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s not… like, we play in Montreal, dude. Toronto has their own ball team, and he’s from Toronto. He’s not playing for his home team. He’s just playing for a team.”

Auston rolls his eyes and spears another piece of steak. “Everyone who cares about baseball is American,” he says, “as far as they’re concerned, he’s Canadian, playing for a Canadian team. He’s going home.”

“That’s offensive to our loyal French-Canadian fans,” Jack says stiffly, and without the vigor that Auston would otherwise expect.  

“Dude,” Auston says, “it’s been, like, two weeks. What the fuck gives? Is it true, or something, is he impossible to catch?”

“No,” Jack says, and he goes gratifyingly indignant at that, at least. “He’s fine to catch. Besides, this isn’t the first time we’ve played together.”

Auston squints at him. “All-star games don’t count.”

“Still,” Jack shrugs, “we’ve been at dev camps and stuff, over the years. We’ve.”

He looks at Auston then, over his plate of half-eaten, dietician approved food, as serious as he’s been since training started back up. He takes a deep breath. “We’ve met before,” he says carefully.

“Oh, shit.” Auston says. Because the thing is—the thing is, he knows about Jack. It’s mostly an accident, because he was around when all the shit went down in college, but now he knows and so Jack, sometimes, very rarely, will tell him things that he doesn’t tell the other guys, because nobody else knows.

They’ve never said it out loud, either one of them. Jack doesn’t tell him about the guys he picks up or anything like that, but. Auston knows, and they’ve gotten very good at this shorthand, Jack’s signals as easy to read as when he’s behind the plate.

Auston takes a swig of ice water, still stunned.

“I know,” Jack says to his plate, “I mean, obviously I didn’t think we would ever be teammates, at the time. We were kids, you know? But. Yeah. It’s been awkward.”

“Shit,” Auston says again, aiming for sympathetic.

“I’ll get it together,” Jack says, determined, in the same way he sounded before game seven when he said, _we’re going to beat these motherfuckers._ Of course, they’d lost that game, so.

“Of course,” Auston says.

…

Spring training rolls to a close and they all trek back up to Montreal to start the season for real, and start it well, too. Connor McDavid is pitching out of his mind and Auston is giving him a run for his money; they’ve got a stacked bullpen behind them and Jack Eichel behind the plate and some serious offensive power, too, with Rielly racking up the home runs, and so they’re in a pretty good spot, all things considered.

And beyond that, beyond the highlight reels, there’s the normal ebb and flow of a long season, the win streaks and the loss streaks and the way that Colton loses his curveball for almost a week until Jack takes him to the bullpen and beats it back into him, the way that Seth drops two games straight after his girl leaves him for a chef and Jack’s offensive slump that nobody’s talking about because he’s calling games the same as always. Slumps happen and they happen to Jack; he’s snapped them before and he will again. Still, it makes his jaw tight, makes him twitchy everywhere that’s not behind the plate, and that isn’t particularly useful to Auston as a pitcher or a friend, so.

Auston takes him to the cages, sometimes, to let him hit the jitters out of his system. He’s not sure it helps. There are a lot of jitters to be worked out.

McDavid stays quiet in the clubhouse and the bullpen and the dugout, but he stops skulking so much; develops some sort of rapport with the coaches and with Ryan, for whatever reason, and with Jack, even.

And they win, and they win, and they win.

…

In June, the Portland Beavers roll into town and there’s money on the board for McDavid’s old team.

Jack’s a fucking fanatic about it. Of course, he is in some ways about every game and every team—knows batters, pitchers and umps on all 31 teams like he knows his own name—but with this game, he’s…

He pulls out his binders, which Auston hasn’t seen in years and which nobody else has any hope of reading, hauls them around to video and to his pitcher’s meetings. Two games at home, and McDavid’s starting the first, Auston the second. Aaron tags along, looks taken aback at the four inches of paper stuffed full of years of reports on the Beavers. Jack pulls this shit from his head, usually. In college, they used to get him fucking wasted and play with him like that—ask him about an obscure batter from another team, and three and four sheets to the wind Jack knew the guy right away, without fail, knew his batting average and his hitting style and which game last year he gave up an easy fly ball straight to center field.

Jack dresses for the game like always, like he has since Auston met him at eighteen, kisses his crucifix for luck.

And then, like always, he finds his starting pitcher, hugs him from behind. McDavid’s resigned himself to it at this point, if the way his face goes soft is any indication.

And then, like always. “Let’s play ball, boys.”

…

The game is a carefully controlled shitshow, and Jack is the ringmaster.   

McDavid’s not visibly perturbed, but he’s shaking Jack off at the plate like he hasn’t all year, turns down five and six pitches in a row. It’s itching under Jack’s skin, Auston can tell from the dugout where he’s swathed in his warmups because he won’t play tonight unless hell freezes over and Matt blows his elbow. Jack’s not used to being challenged like that, prides himself on calling a game built for his pitcher and has since management handed him the reins a few years back.

There’s a runner at second, Strome up to bat, and McDavid waves off another pitch, throws a ball, count 3-1. Aaron’s perched beside Auston, also out for the night, and he’s tense. Auston can tell, because he keeps chewing his gum faster and faster as the inning slogs on. Strome walks to first. Coach is twitching and Jack approaches the mound and throws his glove over his mouth, but it doesn’t take much work to imagine what Jack’s saying.

Or maybe, Auston knows what Jack would say to him, if it were him, because Jack always seems to know his mood effortlessly. Sometimes, he ribs him a little, gives him an extra push: _Come on, Matty, that was weak. I know you got better than that._ Sometimes, it’s, _you got a bad call there, blue said it too. He owes you one, throw me a strike, hey?_ Once, he told him a dumb knock-knock joke, just to make him laugh. He might be saying something different to McDavid, probably is. Jack’s always read his pitchers like he reads the game.

Whatever he’s saying, McDavid’s nodding, nodding, shaking his head. It’s a long talk, as far as these things go. Jack’s in close to him, hand on his hip, speaking low near his ear so nobody can pick it up. It’s the top of the fifth and they’re up a run and they really can’t afford to have these two batted home, but that’s not what Jack is saying. He’s reeling McDavid carefully in from his own head, putting him back on his feet. Giving him a target and expecting him to hit it like he’s done a thousand times.

McDavid nods once more; Jack pats his hip and jogs back to the plate and says something to the ump, pulls his mask back down and squats, easily, calls a pitch. Gives McDavid a target to hit.

He hits it, just like he’s done a thousand times.

…

Even after he screws McDavid’s head back on straight, Jack’s frustrated, his slump dragging on—he doesn’t get a hit tonight, again, just a sacrifice bunt that at least puts Johnny Gaudreau on second for Rielly to hit home.

“Shoulda stuck to hockey,” Auston jokes carefully when Jack storms back and drops his batting helmet, unsure how it will land.

Jack shrugs, like he’s considering it, and then says seriously, “fuck the Habs, though.”

They win the game, barely, after Matt comes in and puts up a solid performance in the last few innings. McDavid’s face is drawn after the game as he changes—not his worst game, but not his best, not by far. Jack doesn’t look much better. He always takes it personally when his pitchers brush him off, unused to it.

McDavid’s going out with some of his old boys tonight, Auston’s pretty sure. He nudges him with an elbow once they both have their dress shirts back on, says, “good game.”

“No, it wasn’t,” McDavid says, and Auston gets that, has a perfectionist streak, too, but he shrugs anyway.

“Win’s a win,” he says. “Doesn’t matter how you feel about it.”

…

McDavid’s game falls off.

Auston doesn’t know if it was playing his old team, if that was a coincidence, but he’s dropped three games in a row as a starter since then and he’s wearing it on his face and in his attitude, frustrated with himself and not afraid to show it.

More than once, Auston stumbles upon him talking to Jack in a low voice in the clubhouse with their heads bowed together, or pitching in the bullpen, or chatting by their parked cars.

“Gotta keep my pitchers’ heads in the game,” Jack says when Auston raises his eyebrows at that, which is fair; Jack takes Matt to dinner when he has the time, stops by Auston’s with beers when Auston doesn’t have a date lined up. Keeps his guys in line, just like he always has.

…

And then.

…

Aaron’s dressing for the game, which Auston only registers as off after he gears up himself, pulls his warmups back on. It’s McDavid’s start tonight, and he’s huddled in the corner like usual, looking at his folded hands.

Jack’s in a track jacket, face implacable, leaned against the wall. And then, Auston thinks, _Jack’s resting tomorrow,_ because tomorrow is Colton’s start and he prefers a stronger framer, anyway, and so Aaron catches him more often than not.

Sure enough, the batting lineup has Aaron’s name in where Jack’s should be. Gazes are thrown around the room, but nobody will say a word, everything feeling echoing and cold without Jack’s usual pregame energy to hype up his boys.

It’s McDavid’s start, and Jack’s his catcher, but Aaron’s wearing the glove.

“What?” Auston says when he sits next to him, low, “are you injured?” Because that must be the only…

Jack shakes his head, hard. “He asked for Aaron,” he says neutrally, but his face is broadcasting disbelief. “He asked for him specifically.”

Auston swallows. It’s a bad idea, to have this shit in the clubhouse this soon before a game. It’s making the guys nervous, antsy.

“He probably just wanted a change,” Auston says finally, “jump start his game. Get out of the slump.”

Jack shrugs like he couldn’t care less. McDavid is watching him, which might be why, but his face is drawn and miserable and tight. McDavid doesn’t look any better. “Won’t catch for someone who can’t trust me, anyway.”

…

Auston’s got Michelle on the hook tonight, Michelle with the hot little body and the perfect fucking tits, but he’s pretty sure it’s going to have to wait, considering the game they just played.

Sure enough, Jack’s ratty jeep rolls into his driveway and he trudges up to the front door, six pack in hand.

There’s not a lot to say, in the end. The media is already churning up stories of a feud, a clubhouse divide, some salacious reason McDavid chose the backup.

Coach told them it was Jack’s rest day, of course, but it’s suspicious. He catches 45 games for McDavid before he’s unceremoniously dropped, so there must be a reason and so people are going to talk about it.

They get through an episode and a half of Breaking Bad and most of the six pack before Auston says, “when did he tell you?”

“Wasn’t invited to the pitching meeting, so,” Jack says, and shrugs. “Not too hard to pick up.”

“Ekblad looked okay,” Auston says, after another long moment. It’s always hard to tell, with Jack and Aaron. Jack’s proud of him, usually, how he’s been learning and what Jack’s been teaching him, but. Maybe not tonight.

Jack blinks at him, a little surprised. “Missed a few calls in the fifth. He’s learning. Went through the scouting reports with him before the meeting, but it’s a lot, you know?”

“Sure,” Auston says. Aaron hadn’t called the whole game anyway, not like Jack would. Relaying signs from the dugout and Connor kept shaking him off, _no, no, not that one. Not that one, either._ Jack would have stormed the mound like he used to do with Auston, probably, _you want to call the game, you picked the wrong fucking position, bud._ He’d just leaned back on the bench in his track jacket, though, chewing gum, face stoic. Clapped Aaron on the shoulders before every inning.

Another episode starts. “I don’t get it,” Auston says finally, throat aching with how long he’s been holding it in. _Why? Why Aaron? Why tonight? Why, why, why?_ “You’ve caught him since spring training. Hand him a perfect fucking catcher on a silver platter and he blows it off? Coach was pissed, too. Changing the batting lineup day of the game.”

“You buy a star pitcher like that, you give him what you want,” Jack says, casual, like, _you know these pitchers. Mental cases, can’t make up their minds._ Like it doesn’t make a difference to him, like the newest player on the roster hadn’t ousted him unceremoniously from his starting role. Then he looks at his hands, fingernails scrabbling at the label on his last, empty bottle of beer, nowhere near as calm as he’s pretending. “You, uh. Noah’s getting married, you probably saw. His girl’s pregnant.”

“Yeah, I saw,” Auston says. They follow each other on Instagram, him and Noah, because they’re friends. Noah hadn’t been quite smiling in the picture, but he doesn’t really need to because he’s got that kind of face anyway, and his generically beautiful girlfriend—fiancée—had been beaming wide enough for both of them, left hand upraised. He’d almost texted it to Jack, figuring he should get a warning before the guys inevitably brought it up at practice, and then he hadn’t, because Jack gets weird about Noah and how weird Auston gets about him, and because Auston still doesn’t really understand their whole situation. Judging by the fact that Jack knows the pregnancy news, which was definitely not posted on the Instagram account that Noah’s very Catholic family also follows him on, Jack probably had advanced warning, anyway.

_Does Noah even like women?_ He’d asked Jack once, because it was Jack’s senior year of college and all the guys knew by then because the shit had hit the metaphorical fan by that point and because Noah kept wandering off from parties to make out with sorority girls on back porches only to stumble unsubtly out from Jack’s room later on, anyway. Jack hadn’t laughed like Auston thought he might. He said, _Noah likes people to think he’s straight._

Or, as the answer has turned out to be a handful of year later, Noah likes women enough to knock one up and ask her to marry him, at least as far as Instagram is concerned.

And then, “so?” Auston asks, a beat too late, because he’s not getting four from two and two as far as why Noah getting married has anything to do with McDavid pitching to Aaron tonight.

“So,” Jack says, and looks away. “So Noah texted me last night and then I drove over to Connor’s house.”

The anger hits Auston first, maybe unreasonably. He opens his mouth, and then tells himself, like he does on the mound, _let it ride._ Takes a few deep breaths. He’s glad he did, when he looks over at Jack, who’s more miserable than Auston’s ever seen him, even that day in college.

“I know,” Jack says.

_He knows,_ Auston thinks. He knows how stupid, how irresponsible, to get involved with a teammate, but then— _he’s already said it to himself._ Anything Auston would have to say, Jack’s already said it to himself, because now it’s impacting his team, and Jack takes that more seriously than anything in his personal life, more seriously than his own hurt feelings, more seriously than his own bad decisions.

Auston wishes he would be allowed to yell at Jack, sometimes. At least then he could make it stop, because he’s afraid that Jack never does.

The TV drones on in the background, and Auston never got up to turn on his overhead lights and so all he can see Jack by is the flickering of the screen, bluish light making his features look angular and set.

“Wouldn’t be the first time, anyway,” Jack says, after it’s clear that Auston’s not going to take him up on his thinly disguised offer to chastise him. “That a guy didn’t want me to catch him after he found out.”

With whatever went down last night, Connor already knew and Auston’s sure of it, but he doesn’t say that. He says, “yeah, well, Brian was a dickbag and he’s still playing AAA ball, so what does he fucking know.”

Jack huffs, but it breaks the tension. He sets his bottle back down on the table. “You’re not even going to ask me if I was pitching or catching?”

Auston blanches, visibly and intentionally, because he knows it will make Jack laugh for real. “I would rather play pioneer league for the rest of my career than ever know about your sex life in that much detail. Glad you scored a home run, though, buddy.”

Jack’s face goes somber again; Auston wants to kick himself. “Only one of the season,” Jack says softly, and Auston doesn’t want to say _that will change_ because they’re superstitious and because he knows that it won’t help, but he knows it’s true.

Instead, he reaches out, claps Jack on the knee. “Still your team, Jacko,” he says softly, and Jack looks over, maybe because Auston hasn’t called him that since college. “Everyone knows that.”

Jack’s mouth twists, imperceptibly. “Not everyone,” he says.

…

Jack stays the night, crashes in one of Auston’s guest rooms and tries to sneak out in the morning. Auston catches him, because he’s already up making coffee. He looks so guilty that Auston has to ask.

“Where are you rushing off to?”

“Bullpen practice,” Jack says, and sets his jaw like he knows Auston won’t like the answer. “McDavid asked for me specifically.”

And yeah, Auston doesn’t like that. Maybe especially because it means that he had to have texted Jack either very late or very early, and Auston generally doesn’t like the types of conversations that would have otherwise gone down at those hours.

“Dude,” he says finally, unable to hold it back.  

“He wants me to catch him,” Jack says, more clearly. “That’s a good thing. Like, for my career, and for this team, if it sticks. So. I’m going to go see if we can make it stick.”

He’s got Auston right where he lives, with that one, which means that Auston can’t really do much besides sigh very deeply and project just how bad an idea he thinks this probably is.

“Pour me some coffee for the road,” Jack says, in his catcher’s voice, his _you listen to me and I’ll take this game home_ voice. “Auston. I appreciate that you think you’re looking out for me, but you’ve got to let me make my own choices.”

It makes Auston uneasy. Jack manages his pitchers, and Auston manages Jack. That’s just how it is.

Connor McDavid is beginning to make that very difficult.

Auston pours him some coffee for the road. “Your own mistakes?” He says, before he hands it over.

Jack bites the inside of his cheek. “Yeah,” he says, “those too.”

…

The California road trip is a long slog but also has beaches and bikinis and so Auston suffers through it mostly cheerfully. It’s a winning trip, in most ways. Auston has a few strong starts himself; the team wins five in a row.

Jack goes back behind the plate for McDavid, which, all things considered, is probably the best news for the team since they picked McDavid up to begin with.

They’re spending more time together, the two of them, which Auston is wary of considering that the last time that they’d hung out or hooked up or whatever it was, Connor had thrown a hissy and then lost them all a game.

Or something like that.

But they’re together on the plane, they’re at the pool, up at the bar, and it puts the rest of the team at ease to have a winning battery, so Auston keeps his mouth firmly shut and only raises his eyebrows in Jack’s direction every few hours.

They drop a game to the Dodgers, Seth’s start and Aaron’s too, and it deflates them, a little.

Jack’s a statue in the dugout, watching the game with sharp eyes, not a flicker of emotion on his face. After every inning, Aaron comes off the field and sheds his gear to bat and sits next to Jack, who pats him on the knee or the shoulder and says a few words to him.

Jack still makes his rounds after like usual, outfielders and infielders and his pitchers. Aaron waits for him to come around last, looking bleak.

Jack stops by McDavid where he’s still sitting, though neither of them had played. Auston can’t hear what’s being said, but McDavid tips his face up, touches the outside of Jack’s leg, just north of the knee, soft and brief. He nods, once.

“We’re going out tonight, Matty,” Jack says on his way by. “Mandatory team bonding. Blow off whatever girl you have on your hook, we can find you a hotter one, anyway.”

…

The bar is crowded and hot and loud, and Jack is in the center of it all.

“I swear to God, I’m gonna get that boy laid tonight,” Nate says into Auston’s neck, clutching a glass of something pink and already wasted.

“You do that, Nater,” Auston says, and shoves him over in Jo’s direction where he’s shirtless on the dance floor. He’s hanging back a bit, not quite in the mood to deal with the crowd.

“Mind if I sit?” And it’s McDavid, holding a pitcher of beer and looking far too sober, and so Auston shrugs when Connor slides into the other side of the booth. They don’t really have much to talk about. Auston probably should have made more of an effort earlier in the season when they still had the excuse of Connor being new, because now it feels strange and a little forced.

“Jack looks like he’s having a good time,” Connor says after a long moment.

“Ah,” Auston says, “yeah, he likes this—being around people with as much energy as him.”

Connor huffs out a laugh. Nate’s found his way over to Jack, by now, hanging all over him and gesturing wildly out at the room, probably a _look at all these hot girls, dude._

Jack laughs, like he always does. Usually when the guys get on him about hooking up, he grins or raises his eyebrows, implying that he has something else cooking. It usually works.

“You’ve known each other for a long time,” Connor says, not quite a question.

“Yeah, played college ball together,” Auston says, and then, “us and Noah Hanifin—plays shortstop for the Red Sox.”

Connor doesn’t blink at Noah’s name, like Auston thought he might. Maybe that means Jack hasn’t told him; maybe it means he already knows everything. “You must have had a good team,” Connor says.

“National champions,” Auston says, still a little proud, and then adds without subtlety, “mostly because of Jack. Called a near-perfect game in the finals. Hell of a catcher.”

Connor nods, then looks away. “I know what you probably want to say to me,” he says softly.

Auston mostly wants to say, _stop fucking with my starting catcher’s head._

He doesn’t. He just shrugs, and says, “just want to make sure you know that, is all.”

“I know that,” Connor says, “of course I do. I didn’t… I made a bad choice, when I said I didn’t want him to catch me. I let myself get wrapped up in my head.”

“Because you’d been with him,” Auston says, lowly enough that nobody else will hear. “I know, about him. And, uh. About, you know, that night.”

Connor doesn’t look shocked, to Auston’s surprise. “Because I’d… because I didn’t know what it meant. To him, or to the team.”

“But you do, now?”

“I, uh…” He looks away, over at where Jack is in the crowd, throwing back a shot, probably of Jack, because he’s not funny. He’s flushed and happy looking and wearing a white t-shirt that’s gone slightly translucent, damp under the bright colored lights of the club. He’s big and bright and full of light, and Auston thinks, not for the first time, _this is a kid that somebody’s going to fall in love with, one day._

“I don’t, for sure,” Connor says, and he’s wearing a soft half-smile like he’s thinking the same thing. “But I think I’m… closer.”

Auston takes a long drink of his beer, gone slightly warm, now. “As long as you’re serious, about it,” he says, “people haven’t always been.”

The smile drops off Connor’s face. “I know,” he says, “the first time I met him, it was at this dev camp and it was his junior year and he rolled in with this huge black eye.”

“Ah,” Auston says. So Connor really does know.

“Yeah,” Connor says. “And I was… young and cocky and I was busy telling the pitching coach that nobody could catch me right, you know? And he literally squatted down right there and said, ‘try me.’ He didn’t even have his glove.”

That jolts a laugh from Auston. “That sounds like him. I made the same mistake—came to school hot off a high school championship and told him that I was too good for him to catch. Not in so many words, but.”

“Bet he took that well,” Connor says, laughing now, too.

“No,” Auston says. “Not that I knew it, then, because he didn’t say anything, but he was gonna prove me fucking wrong if it killed him. He got me my first no-hitters, in school and with the Expos, too. He’s a special player. A special guy.”

“I asked him about that black eye,” Connor says. “He said he’d show me what happened. I thought he meant punch me, at first, but he, ah. That was the first time.”

Auston’s face does something that’s probably close to a grimace, but Connor might not even notice, pushes on, “I was wrong at that dev camp, too, when I said he couldn’t catch me. That’s why I should have known better, this time around.”

“You’ll learn,” Auston says wryly, as Jack edges his way over to them, “he’ll make sure of it.”

“You talking shit again, Matty?” Jack says, shouting a touch too loud and ruffling Auston’s hair.

“Talking about our starting catcher,” Auston says, smoothing it back out. Jack collapses next to Connor, leaning into him with his shoulder until Connor gives up and slides further in the booth. “Ugly bastard, and an asshole to boot.”

“Haha,” Jack says, and kicks at his legs, but he’s flushed and smiling and leaning into Connor. “Alright, Matts. Who are you pulling tonight?”

Auston shrugs, looks around the room. There are some smokeshows here, some looking in their direction, but he’s not feeling it tonight, the energy he needs to try to pull someone. They have an early flight anyway. “Boys night,” he decides, and magnanimously picks up the empty pitcher, “I’ll go get a refill.”

It takes him a while to fight through the crowd, and he gets sidetracked and strong-armed into taking a tequila shot with Seth. By the time he gets back, Connor’s smiling. Auston’s not sure he’s ever seen that before. They’re still sitting pressed close together, even though there’s plenty of room in the booth to spread out.

Auston catches sight of their fingers, twisted together under the table.

“Uh,” Jack says, when Auston plants the full pitcher back down on the table. “I think I’m gonna head back to the hotel early, man. Catch up on some sleep.”

Unsurprisingly, Connor stands up as well. “Yeah, that’s. A good idea, probably. Have an early night.”

“Uh-huh,” Auston says, and Jack slugs him in the arm before they go.

Nate collapses into him from behind, half a minute later. “Where’d Jack go?” he asks, and then gasps, “oh shit, did he pick up?”

“Something like that,” Auston says.

…

Auston ends up at Jack’s place after they clinch a postseason berth, which he doesn’t usually. Jack’s got, like, this big family home even though he lives alone—a massive kitchen that he doesn’t cook in and more bedrooms than he knows what to do with. It makes Auston a little uncomfortable in ways that he can’t quite put his finger on, so they usually hang out at his townhouse instead.

Jack doesn’t look shocked to see him, though. Auston started tonight, and it was a rough start, too, jarring this late in the season. He needs to shrug it off, and not with some girl who’s going to clutch at his arm and tell him how well he played.

Jack doesn’t do either of those things. He shrugs and hands him a beer and says things like, “lose the battle to win the war” and it’s not helpful, really, but it’s routine and that helps, some.

He’s got the wedding invitation on his fridge, Noah and his cookie-cutter WAG-to-be and a date in December.

Jack catches him looking and says carefully, “I’m going to be his best man.”

Auston breathes. “Yeah, I’m not surprised.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just…” he shrugs, looks at his beer. “I’m not surprised. Like I said. You two are friends, so it makes sense.”

There’s a beat of painful silence. “Look,” Jack says finally, “I know you’re uncomfortable with… with Noah, and with me and the whole thing, but—”

“No, I’m,” Auston says, startled. Jack’s face is hard, guarded. Auston wonders how long this has been in his head, thinking that Auston was… “I don’t have a problem with Noah, or with you, or with either one of you being with other guys. I don’t, okay? Really.”

Jack looks at the ceiling, arms tensed on the counter. “You clearly don’t like him,” he says, “so.”

“I just,” Auston says, and has to start over. They’re friends, sort of, or so he assumed, but not… he didn’t get that invitation to Noah’s wedding, and that’s fine by him. “I don’t like the way he messes with you, I guess.”

And now Jack is looking at him, highly skeptical. “We haven’t slept together since college,” he says, which Auston didn’t know and is a little surprised by, but is also not really the crux of his issue.

“Okay,” Auston says. “I mean. I know that I don’t really have a right to judge your relationship and it’s your life and whatever, but I just. I don’t really know that I would want to stand up at my ex’s wedding, you know?”

“What?”

“It just seems like he’s crossing the line, I guess.”

“No,” Jack says, “Auston. We’re not… we were never together.”

And now it’s Auston who blinks, and says, “what?”

“Are you kidding me?” Jack says, with a humorless laugh, “you were there, in college. You think Noah would have dated me? In between, what, bench pressing and trying to convince Kappa Deltas he was straight enough to eat them out? No fucking way, man. He’d have sex with me when he got drunk enough, but it was mostly just, like… we’re friends, you know? I wasn’t in love with him, most days. I’m not pining. He’s a good guy. And he got it then, how hard it is, and he still does, so.”

“I’m sorry,” Auston says softly, “for assuming, and for… you know.”

“Yeah,” Jack says, “I don’t think Brian catching me sucking him off in the showers and decking me for it really helped him come to terms with his sexuality, but.”

“So he’s just going to… marry her, and then, what? Be straight for the rest of his life?”

“I don’t…” Jack says, exasperated. “I don’t know, dude, it’s not that simple, okay? I mean. We have different philosophies on this shit, right? He dated girls in college and he’s dated them since and maybe that’s enough for him. I’m not gonna, like, judge him for that. I never did. But you don’t think I think about it, sometimes? How easy it could be to just… pretend for a little while?”

“Is that easier?” Auston asks softly. He’s wondered, off hand, where Jack usually goes during the season, or after it, for that matter. He’s not celibate, Auston’s pretty sure, and they’re not, like, _that_ famous, not Yankee famous, and the Canadiens consistently outrank them in this town, but they still get papped at clubs from time to time. He’s pretty sure Jack has some guys in Boston. He thinks there might have been a guy, here—a hockey player they all met at some intrateam city-wide bonding stint, because like Jack always says, fuck the Habs.

But he’s never thought seriously about it before, if Jack picks up on the road and where and how and who and if the worry always sits in his gut like a stone because what if this is the time that somebody tells? He’s ashamed of that, suddenly.

Jack’s staring at him. “I woke up this morning,” he says, “and I was a multi-millionaire. I’m playing my favorite fucking sport in the world for a living, I have a big house and no debts and my family is healthy, and everything is good, right? And I don’t even mind being single, or whatever, most of the time. I’m not ready to get married yet. But that’s… I think about it, all the time, because I can’t do that. Like, if you decided tomorrow that you wanted to be with someone, seriously, you would just call up one of the three hundred girls you’ve dicked down over the past five years and any fucking one of them would let you take her out. I don’t have that. I don’t have that option. So, like, I’m not going to begrudge Noah putting a ring on some poor girl’s finger, if that’s what he wants to do, because he has a fiancée and a baby on the way and he has people to spend his life with, and what do I have?”

He gestures around himself; the sterile kitchen, the big, quiet house.

“I have baseball,” he says, and Auston wonders when that stops being enough, or if it ever was.

But. There’s Canadian beer in the fridge, even though Jack only drinks Bud Light and, sometimes, Sam Adams. There’s hair gel on the counter in the bathroom that Jack wouldn’t even know how to use. The birthmark on his jawline is ringed in pink today, like someone put their mouth there first thing in the morning.

“You have the best pitcher in the national league,” Auston says, and he says it lightly, frames it like a joke, and Jack takes the bait, rolls his eyes.

“Cocky, Matty,” he says, and Auston looks at his hands and thinks of the way Jack said, _I know you’re uncomfortable with it._

“I didn’t mean me,” he says, and then he meets Jack’s eyes and watches his face soften.

Jack shrugs, just a little movement, half self-conscious. “Yeah,” he says, “I know.”

…

Jack’s had the same routine since Auston met him at eighteen. He dresses the same way now for the World Series as he did for a mid-season game back at Michigan.

It’s comforting, to Auston and to the rest of the team, a point of consistency in the turmoil of a season.

He kisses his crucifix for luck.

It’s Auston’s start, tonight. Right now, Jack’s saying something quiet to McDavid where he’s sitting in his warmups. His face is soft, body angled so that the rest of the room can’t see it when McDavid reaches up and touches his waist, or the way their fingers catch and tangle for a moment when Jack makes to pull back.

It’s Auston’s start, so Jack finds him, hugs him from behind. Auston grins and relaxes, in spite of himself, and when he looks over, McDavid is smiling too, and Aaron, and Seth, Colton, Jo and Nate, everyone oriented towards Jack where he’s got his hand planted warm and firm over Auston’s heart.

It’s Jack’s team. Everyone knows that.

Auston can feel it when Jack takes a deep breath in, and when he says, “Let’s play ball, boys.”

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all, I genuinely do not know enough about baseball to have written this fic. I began by googling "baseball catcher." I also spent a great deal of time zooming in on the post-hat trick photo trying to see if Jack wears a crucifix or a cross--I'm pretty sure it's not a crucifix after all, but let's just call that and everything else I got wrong 'creative license.' 
> 
> (They play for the Expos bc TNA played in Montreal and I like to think I'm clever and also because I didn't want to work around a real baseball team. Picture the USNTDP as the college team. My apologies to Dylan Larkin for forgetting that he existed until this very moment and also to Noah Hanifin for making him this way.)
> 
> BUT. This stuck in my head after the World Series this year.... and also because of: [THIS classic draft pic](http://wonthetrade.tumblr.com/post/156549685480/hohohoforcarlo-this-is-my-favorite-mceichel-pic) and because of [this](http://wonthetrade.tumblr.com/post/169194051540/jr-challenge-nbc-january-1-2018) and [these](http://hockeychickchat.tumblr.com/post/150515447951/under-24-hockey-bums-climbing-stairs) in baseball pants. I digress.
> 
> Please tell me how wrong I am about baseball but how right about hockey ass in baseball pants below. Or, you know. Anything else.


End file.
